SIM COMPLETE - 1988 - Regular Season 17

[Carlos]

I'll edit that one out. We shouldn't be having any career ending injuries. The database has been edited to exclude them so I'm not sure why they're still happening.

I appreciate that. I wasn't sure if it applied to setbacks.

Still, OOTP should do something about their own injury system. I have never heard of someone having a four month injury, a week away from full recovery, and then having a setback that ends their career.

Maybe someone will find evidence of it. Anyway, I'm done being upset over this one. I blame it on Indy.

[Andrew]

I appreciate that. I wasn't sure if it applied to setbacks.

Still, OOTP should do something about their own injury system. I have never heard of someone having a four month injury, a week away from full recovery, and then having a setback that ends their career.

Maybe someone will find evidence of it. Anyway, I'm done being upset over this one. I blame it on Indy.

No worries. Looks like he'll be out another 4 weeks or so.

I'm wondering if the CEI we're seeing are only on setback injuries. I can't find anything in the injury database that differentiates them though.

[Z]

Gremades returns to Pittsburgh this week. That series should be interesting.

[Jim]

Wow... there are some impressive payrolls out there.

Just doing some quick math (and for those of you counting at home, I got a degree in communications primarily since it only required 1 math class for my degree, so take this with a grain of salt), here's what I just came up with:

10 teams over luxury tax
14 teams under

$143 million in salary over the luxury tax

So that means each team under will get approximately $10.2m. Not sure how that compares to past years but wow, that's a lot per team. I'm glad I'm in the group that will be sharing in those revenues.

[Spectre]

Just doing some quick math (and for those of you counting at home, I got a degree in communications primarily since it only required 1 math class for my degree, so take this with a grain of salt), here's what I just came up with:

10 teams over luxury tax
14 teams under

$143 million in salary over the luxury tax

So that means each team under will get approximately $10.2m. Not sure how that compares to past years but wow, that's a lot per team. I'm glad I'm in the group that will be sharing in those revenues.

Where does that luxury tax money go? I'm not sure I ever knew how the luxury tax works.

[Jim]

Where does that luxury tax money go? I'm not sure I ever knew how the luxury tax works.

From league rules:

• Luxury Tax
  • The Luxury Tax is $90 million
  
  
  • Any team who's Player Expenses exceed the luxury tax will be penalized 50% of the amount they go over.
  • Luxury taxes paid will be distributed evenly among all teams with revenue below the league average.

[Jim]

Actually, now that I just wrote that, I realized my numbers are off, because it looks at player expenses, not player payroll, which is what I was looking at. The 2 numbers could be different based on trades.

[Delandis]

I thought we were doing it based on avg. revenue?

[Jim]

I think that starts in '89.

[Delandis]

Just went back to check. It begins this off-season. Recap:

Payrolls, budgets and revenue have slowly increased since the start of the league. The average revenue last season was $92,000,000 which is obviously more than our current luxury tax threshold.

The updated proposal is:

The Luxury Tax is equal to 110% of the previous seasons average revenue
Any team who's Player Expenses exceed the luxury tax will be penalized 100% of the amount they go over.
Luxury taxes paid will be distributed among all teams with revenue below the league average as a ratio of the amount below. (ie the teams with lower revenue will receive more luxury tax)

If avg. revenue is about the same as last year, that puts the luxury tax at about 102 million.

[Clay]

That doesn't go in till next season (I believe).

[Andrew]

That doesn't go in till next season (I believe).

Correct. The luxury tax for this season is still $90m

[Clay]

Virginia Colonials (57-48)

2-1 vs Morgantown
2-2 vs Washington

WHAT WENT RIGHT

-- Mel Woodbury - Yes... we paid a lot. Yes... the young pieces we gave up are producing. Yes... he's been hurt in recent seasons. But the bottomline is Woodbury is an elite player and a legit Stout Slugger candidate, something the Colonials have never really had. 'Doorbell' adds his 4th Player of the Week Award and goes 15 for 26 this SIM (.577/.621/.962/1.582).

-- Artie Rhodes - The kid just keeps rolling. Stole his 30th base of the season and continues to just hit the ball and put himself in position to score.

-- Pancho Herrerra - An 11 K no decision is OK, but I like to really scout my young guys a lot and, while my Scouts have always loved 'Ironfist', the report changed (at least in text) for the first time all season. My scout now says (I'm paraphrasing) "If I could choose one pitcher in the league to start a Championship game for me, he would be on the very short list for the call."

-- George McSwain - Didn't get any SAVES this week in his return to the 'Pen, but he was really good in his first three outings. If he can hold down the fort and keep us in the hunt, he's earned the contract extension that I just offered him.

-- 1.0 GB - When all is said and done, a franchise like mine is just happy to be playing meaningful games after the Trade Deadline. I feel like Washington maybe got marginally better at the break, but most of the IL teams made pretty minor moves all in all. Baltimore made a few moves, but I'm not sure their total package improved (plus we're done playing them). I feel like getting Magness back from injury was better than any trade I would have made and puts me in a good position to make a run.

WHAT WENT WRONG

-- Vincent Nino - Had a nice SIM, but got dinged up at the end costing him the better part of this coming week. We'll be extra cautious with him as to not risk a larger injury. Yoritoki Maeda will move to 3B for the first 4 games of the week, shifting Rod Phillips to 1B for the first time in his career and bring Alberto Hernando a few extra starts after being dangled on the trade block just hours ago.

-- Martin Carlton - Is a beast. I knew at the end of last season that the transition to OOTP X was going to give Carlton an outside chance at Starting. In fact, I made JJ a pretty big offer to get him back last year before Diesel did. But never did I imagine he'd be winning the IL Pale Ale... and make no mistakes... this guy is winning the IL Pale Ale.

-- Nate Magness - Comes back from injury, pitches well, but takes two L's on the week.

-- Poling and O'Hegarty - Took the week off offensively. Yikes.

-- The Longball - Bullpen threw a little BP this week. Didn't hurt us too bad, but these guys give up way too many moonshots.

COMING UP!

Back on the road to kick-off August after a very prosperous July. Started July three games under .500 and seriously contemplating selling off some pieces at the deadline. The 19-7 July leaves us cautiously optimistic about our shot at making a Wildcard run. We start the month just 1 game behind California in WC Race and a small lead on the four other IL teams in pursuit. With the Stout race long decided, Virginia seems to be in a strong position coming in. While the tight races in the other divisions are being fought, the Colonials are left to focus solely on the coveted 4th spot in the playoff race.

We start the week on the road at the red hot Batavia - the other team that made a major push in July (17-9). While our 7-2 record on the season had us feeling somewhat comfortable that we can at least win this final series of the year with the Muckdogs, don't ever want to mess with a hot team at home. Vincent Nino, who has developed a little personal rivalry with Batavia, will sit out this entire series nursing a small injury. That leaves a major hole in the lineup that will need to be picked up by someone. Luckily, we'll be able to throw out Morgan, McQueen and Herrerra - all three are coming off great outings.

After a much needed day off, the Colonials take the long flight to Los Alamos for a meeting with the Bandits. The two teams have split so far this season, but the Bandits may be drifting a little bit closer to auto-pilot than they were earlier in the year. While their bats continue to produce, they simply have not been able to get any consistantly strong pitching performances, despite having a decent staff. The Colonials, perhaps against common sense, will throw two straight lefties - Magness and Collins - at a team that tends to hit them well. Magness returned from injury last sim, pitching well, but with nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, the rookie and former Closer Collins will look to get his 10th win of the season - the most among IL Rookies.

Every game counts now and we'll be watching every boxscore closely. Here's to an exciting pennant race!!

[Pat]

Washington Bats (72-33)
2-1 @ Wilmington
2-2 @ Virginia

About what I would expect. A 4-3 week is very good. Ironically, Virginia dealt Washington their first back-to-back losses of the month. In fact, the last time the Bats lost consecutive games was June 1st and June 2nd, against, those same Colonials.

The Good
-Martin Carlton won both starts, now 16-1, giving up 1 ER in 15 innings. He has yet to get a loss as a starter. I wish I could say, like Clay, that I knew he was going to be amazing as a starter. Sometimes, even the rich win the lottery. My entire rotation has really started to light it up. Not one pitcher on the staff has an ERA above 3.00.

-MAP returns from the DL this sim! He will miss the first game but MAP is back!

-I signed catcher Jerry Fortin to $2.5/one-year deal. He will play backup catcher, some left field and maybe a little 3B if I am in a pinch. The old-man wants a contract extensions at $13/per....so I think he should still be able to hit.

The Bad
-I lost 2/3 of my starting OF. Dave Robbins will miss three weeks. Larry Fitzsymons will miss six. MAP returning from the DL couldn't have come at a better time. It also means Carlos Bamentos will be in the starting lineup. Neither injury will cost them their season, or post-season, so I consider myself lucky...especially after what happened to my team due to injuries around this time last year.

-I recently signed Max Oliver to pitch middle relief. After three straight solid outings, he gave up four runs while only getting two outs. He might be a little rusty. He has time to figure it out but this guy might be a bust for 1988.

The Minors
-The Richmond Rams (AAA) are two games back of first. The Auburn Venom (AA) and Eugene Sting (A) are both in first place. Pretty crazy considering my lengthy disabled list.

-I'm also calling up SP Jody Kurtz to the club for the first time since September 1987. Mop-up/long relief will probably be his role right away but the guy really has nothing left to prove in Triple-A and this is his last option year. I'm sending down 3B Xalbador Ansoategui and catcher Pancho Hernandez. Both have struggled in backup roles for the BLB club.

[Clay]

-Martin Carlton won both starts, now 16-1, giving up 1 ER in 15 innings. He has yet to get a loss as a starter. I wish I could say, like Clay, that I knew he was going to be amazing as a starter. Sometimes, even the rich win the lottery. My entire rotation has really started to light it up. Not one pitcher on the staff has an ERA above 3.00.

To be fair, when I say "knew" he was going to be a good starter, I THOUGHT he had a shot. If I actually "knew" anything about this game... well... we wouldn't be Virginia. I just had a feeling about a handful of guys (a couple on my team) and he was one of them. But, even my high side ceiling of what I thought he might be... is nothing close to what he's actually doing.

NOW... that being said.... as to not derail from my other OOTP theory about success breeding success - The Maine Theory - I don't think Carlton is 14-1 and sick nasty on Sin City or one of the teams that is struggling. I think he's probably good... but not Pale Ale level.